


Shadowlands

by Evil_Little_Dog



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, Community: comment_fic, Gen, POV Female Character, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-01
Updated: 2012-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary:  Winry knows about death.<br/>Disclaimer:  Arakawa owns all.  I just play in a sandbox.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadowlands

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: “There's nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the light. Or is there?”  
> Companion piece to [Blood Loss](http://archiveofourown.org/works/330905).

Winry knew about death. It meant something wasn’t living any more. When she pulled a potato out of the ground, it killed the potato plant. The mutton or beef she ate for supper came from an animal that had been butchered, probably by Mr. Culbertson or Mr. Nedobeck, or, if it was chicken, by her grandmother. But she didn’t know about human death until the word came that her parents had been killed in Ishbal, their bodies found, nearly torn apart; the inside of their hospital tent destroyed. 

Not that she was aware of that at first. Granny told her that Mommy and Daddy had died, and they wouldn’t be coming home any more. 

Their caskets came, and Pinako was advised not to open them. What was left of Urey’s and Sara’s bodies hadn’t been found immediately, and wood couldn’t contain the stink of death that created its own miasma around the caskets. She’d had them buried the next day, unable to wait any longer. Winry couldn’t remember much of it, just that the smell was awful, and a lot of people tousled her hair and patted Granny’s shoulder.

The house seemed different the first night after the funeral, like it was holding its breath, and Winry couldn’t sleep. Mommy and Daddy were under the ground, buried up on the hill. They weren’t ever coming home. And the shadows in her room didn’t seem familiar any more. What did Death look like? Did Mommy and Daddy see it? Did it make them scared? Did it come for them in the night, while they were sleeping? If she closed her eyes, would it take her, too? 

Winry shivered, clutching Kuma, her stuffed bear, tight. Daddy said Kuma’d protect her when he wasn’t there, but Winry didn’t think Kuma could protect her from Death. For all she knew, Death was in her room right now, hiding in the dark. But she didn’t cry out loud, because Daddy’d said for her to be good for Granny, and crying would wake her. Kuma soaked up her tears that night, and the next night, and for many nights afterward. 

She didn’t forget about those nights, and what might lurk in the shadows of her room, but she’d put them aside with other memories, locking them into a tiny box of sorrows, and remembering happy times with her parents. The warmth of Mommy’s kisses, the strength of Daddy’s arms when he hefted her into the air. She learned that she could go days without thinking of their deaths, though those memories remained there, taken out some nights, when the wind rattled the shutters of the house, and licked at the windows, sending scurrying little breaths through the easements and cracks. Mostly, though, she didn’t think about Death. 

At least, not until Alphonse showed up in the doorway, his voice ringing through a suit of armor streaked with blood, Edward cradled in his arms, clutching at where his right arm had been, a dripping cloth bandaging the stump of his left leg. And then, Winry knew that what hid in the shadows could come creeping into the light, as well.


End file.
